So this is my photo in the gallery, isn't it exciting? And that's me, yay! I don't think I've posted a picture of me besides my little identification picture. Anyways, I just thought I would put this online because it's exciting. I got to go Saturday to see it and I'm going again this weekend with friends from school. So it's making me feel more confident about my pictures. However, I felt like my picture did not fit in at all. They got like 325 entries and only chose 60 and they chose mine. But I felt like all the other ones were very similar and mine stuck out like an oddball. But it still made me happy to see it on the wall! :) I ended up titling it "Determination" because I found this site online that explained how to title photos for galleries. I don't know, Alex, Noreena and Kate helped a lot. Kate and Noreena have been helping a lot with everything. I always ask them which ones to put in the Scarlet or on my blog or whatever else. But everyone has been really supportive in general. Especially my parents too :) which is good. I feel like it's brought us closer in a way. Because they always went to a lot of sports games and Ange's obviously and now I've been going with them or we've been talking about it. And I find it random that the two sports I ended up shooting the most are soccer and basketball which are both sports Ange played. But I really like soccer the best still. Even after shooting all these different sports I still prefer it.

And this other one is another photo I submitted that didn't make it into the show. However, since it's all nice and framed we decided to hang it up in our room :) It's above Kate's bed. But it looks very nice there and it makes me happy. I was thinking about framing a few more pictures and hanging them at the library over the summer or something. But I guess we will see. I don't know how interesting my sports pictures would be to other people and I don't have that many other ones. But it's a chance to hang them somewhere, they do it all the time and they know me so it's even better. I don't know. I just am getting really excited about all these possibilities and then I wonder if it's what I even should be focusing on. I know it's not my major so I'm not sure. But I really like doing it. For now I guess I'll continue on and try to balance everything out :)

Clark Tournament

So this week at school was the Clark Tournament. I went Monday and Thursday and got some pretty good pictures. I'm not really sure what my next move is though. I'm slightly upset because one of the games I was at published a story without pictures. But these are the other ones...

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100219/NEWS/2190598/1009/sports

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100216/NEWS/2160476/1152/HOMETEAM_main&TEMPLATE=HOMETEAM

Anyways. I don't understand because these are the ones they usually publish in newspapers and such. But these are some of my pictures from this week...

So I don't know if these are acceptable for the newspaper or what? I don't have a good enough camera to zoom in as much as they do. However, I don't know. I must go. Stuff is happening in my room. Oh wow.

Hello, this is just going to be an update about the stuff going on in my life photography wise.

1. I am so frustrated with cmail, it has been down the past couple days and I haven't been able to get on to do anything or contact anyone. I had to send the ice hockey guy a Facebook message, jeez.

2. The Stir Ice Hockey story is unfortunately not going to work out. I talked to the guy on the team writing the article and he said their season is already over which means there are no future opportunities to take pictures. However, they already have some that someone else took of their games. So he's all set. He was really nice about it though, it's just kind of sad. I was excited about it.

3. I went to the website for T&G and looked at all their contact information and got really intimidated. They have lots of sports staff and photographers listed and it scared me. Because I know that my pictures are good, especially considering what camera I'm using and that I'm only a college student. But does that really make them good in the real world and more valuable than pictures they can already get from people on their staff? You know? They already have people they're paying to go out and take pictures for them - so why would they need me? And if I do send something to either the sports or photography staff - what exactly do I say? Because if I say that I saw their picture from the game Monday which I was also taking pictures at and I have some that are just as good - do I sound cocky? Because I feel like that would not be a good way to start off. But then again if I'm not confident enough they won't believe that I can do it or that I'm good enough. You know? Herein lies my dilemma. And do I ask if they want to use some of my pictures or do I ask if they have an intern position open or ... ? I'm not really sure how all of this works. I have so many questions. I just don't want to say the wrong thing to start off with and then ruin any chances I have at working for them. Because I still do have 3 years left in Worcester so that'd be a pretty decent job to potentially have. However, as you can see - just like at games, I'm not confident enough or pushy enough. And I know those are qualities you need to have to succeed in the real world because I'm going to have to fight for a job or what I want but I guess I'm just scared. I don't know if I'm ready for a real job with deadlines and assignments. What if I did horribly at an assignment? I mean I haven't shot every sport before and sometimes it doesn't turn out too well. And it's one thing when I'm taking them for class or for my own personal experience/benefit but if I'm getting paid to do it and I'm failing... ahhh. And my camera isn't exactly advanced either but I don't know if they let you use their equipment? And then there's transportation issues because I don't drive and cabs are too much and I have no idea how the bus system works. It's just like all these things that I'm scared aren't going to work before I even get any opportunity. I don't even why I'm thinking about all of this now. I guess it's just because I am shooting the same thing that they're shooting - the Clark tournament. Sadly, I don't have any pictures for you at the moment to post on my blog because I wanted to see what everyone in class responded too first before I converted them to jpegs. So hopefully I will have a few up for this weekend? Even though everyone in class has already seen them and everyone at home who reads my blog is coming to visit and could just look at my contact sheets.

4. I'm going to see the gallery this weekend, finally. I'm excited. I hope that makes me feel more confident about everything.

I'm going to go now. I have to eat something before class because I think I'm going to another game right after class. Sorry for the length of this one, I just needed to get this all out I guess.

Hello. So let's see what I have to say this week. These are obviously Clark basketball pictures from the girls game I went to. I have a contact sheet to show in class as well. But I really think this one at the bottom is my favorite basketball picture I have taken thus far. Sadly, since I don't know much about basketball and the game is so fast paced I honestly cannot tell if it's a rebound, after a foul shot or an actual attempted shot. I mean I do shoot with burst so I could go back through the pictures and try to find out, which I think I will - but I can only do that in the lab unfortunately. Anyways, I also really like the top image because it's different than what I've been able to capture before and you can see her face so much more. I was in the "endzone" for these ones and in some instances it worked well but it's also very hard because there are always so many players around sometimes it's difficult to isolate the action. Someone's arm or leg or entire body always ends up getting in the way at the precious perfect moment and it bothers me. But I guess that's sports, haha. I also an in conflict about whether or not I like the way the light is reflecting on the court. I think in some instances it can be very distracting and I might burn it down? I don't really know. But I guess that's not really important.

These are two of the pictures I did end up submitting to the Scarlet this week, but I am at home this weekend so I'm not sure if it's out yet - it wasn't Thursday when I checked. But this will be my second issue and I'm excited. I'm having a lot of difficult writing captions though. It's really hard not to be repetitive and I don't know enough of the language not to be. I even tried searching basketball captions online and they all tend to be repetitive. I am easily getting sick of shooting basketball though. This was only my third game and the shots seem very similar and I get easily bored at the game. I'm not sure if it was just my mood that day but I really wasn't as excited as I normally am to take pictures. I think it may have something to do with the captions too because I feel like those get very repetitive so I think my pictures are very repetitive but they're not really. And I do definitely have room to improve so I should keep trying. There's the "Clark Tournament" on Monday at least I know in the gym so I'm going to go to that. Hopefully it'll re-inspire me.

I'm just having a lot of trouble getting back into this. The winter sports schedule didn't work well for me and there weren't many games or a variety of sports in general. It just seems difficult. But spring is just around the corner.

In other news, I still have not been to see the gallery which is depressing - I hate not having a car and being afraid to walk there by myself. But I am definitely going Saturday - I know that. My parents and my boyfriend are coming up and we're all going so I will finally see it then if not Tuesday when another friend from home may come up. I just have been having mixed emotions about everything. But I have decided on the fact that this is a big accomplishment for me and I should be proud of it and I should want other people to see it and be proud of me too. Which brings me to my next point - Frank thinks I should start my own website. I'm excited, I just have to figure out how to do everything.

http://www.jennifermckinneyphotography.com/

I really like the layout and design of this one. Not like I really know much about website design. I just really like her photography in general. I have no idea how I even found this site either. She obviously does posed portraits and shoots, weddings and such. But I just really like the emotion and excitement she has in each picture. There's just so much happiness. Anyways, that's not really important. This is an incredibly long blog post. I should probably go. I'm going to see Valentine's Day today! YAY! And we're also going to Olive Garden, which is amazing. I'm excited :) I just always seem to have so much going on in my brain but I have difficulty putting it into blog form. Everyone who reads my blog says that it read likes I'm talking to them and I feel like that's a good thing? Because that's my personality but I don't know if it should be more formal than that? I mean the idea is to work out ideas and such in our heads so if rambling and writing about whatever helps me I guess that's a good thing. So yup, until next time :P

ps: is this a more acceptable color for my header? I don't want it to be like black/gray/brown tones - that depresses me. I want some color on the page :/

So guess what?! I have officially been published in the Scarlet. YAY! In my opinion, these are my 3 favorites from the WPI game and they were also the favorites in class along with one other one that I guess at the time I did not realize was good or did not want to edit for the Scarlet so I don't have a jpeg image of it unfortunately. But I pretty much got my own page in the newspaper, it's so exciting. Because their sports section is on the back and so I picked it up and got slightly upset when I saw two articles taking up the whole page and then a friend of mine began flipping through it and she saw that on the next to last page was a spread of my pictures along with the puzzles. I know it's nothing that special and the quality is slightly bad and it's black and white but it just makes me feel a little bit better about everything. It makes me feel like I'm honestly using my pictures for something. I know that everyone is saying they're good and whatnot but I really feel like what's the use if they players don't actually see them? Most sports players love pictures of themselves so I'd really like to actually put them out there. Which reminds me, my soccer picture from Holy Cross (the one of the guy in the air that is obviously a foul) got into the art show! YAY! But it just makes me laugh because the art show is a consortium show so what if he ends up seeing it or a friend of his does. I would honestly be thrilled. I am thrilled that it's in the show to begin with but that would make me even happier.

Onto other things, these were some of my first basketball pictures. I had taken some over break of my high school team but no one in class really liked any of them and those were ... less intense? They were only JV basketball and it was more me taking pictures of my best friend's brother and my neighbor and I feel like I didn't get many good ones. But I shot the girls game yesterday and the new lens really did help (THANKS FRANK). I was in the "endzone" too (I know that's what it's called in football so we're just going to go with it). So I think I did good, I hope. I will find out tomorrow when I upload them I guess. I feel like I didn't take as many as I normally do though, I didn't even fill one whole card - it's weird. I know I did go a little late because we had rehearsal for the Woo Dance Plus but I wasn't that late. Oh well, I tried. The winter season is almost over though which is kind of sad because in the in between season I need games which is why I think I resorted to dance last semester. But none of the choreographers are that far along because we've only been doing it for about a week or so. I guess I'll figure something out. But I really like the one of the crowd in this set. It's different from what I normally do. And honestly, Frank has been telling me to get crowd shots but the only games I have ever been to where there has been an actual crowd have been Southern New Hampshire games and the lighting is always horrible because of the way their field is set up. But I am going to try to make a more conscious effort and I can even attempt to zoom in to make it look like more people? I don't know. We will see I guess.